Censors Force Fallout 3 Changes on Edge Online has a surprising revelation
about the news that Fallout 3 was rejected by Australian censors
(story) later to be approved for sale down under after the
editing of some of the game's drug references (story). It turns
out the edited version resubmitted down under will be the version that's
released globally, so everyone will be subject to the Australian standards for
adult games, which is that there are no such things. They quote Bethesda
Softworks' Pete Hines on the topic: "An issue was raised concerning references
to real world, proscribed drugs in the game, and we subsequently removed those
references and replaced them with fictional names. To avoid confusion among
people in different territories, we decided to make those substitutions in all
versions of the game, in all territories. I didn't want people continuing to
assume the version in Australia was some altered version when it's not. There
are no references to real world drugs in any version of Fallout 3."

Bethesda losing potentially millions of dollars (I don't know how well things sell in Australia), or being forced to spend extra money sending out two SKUs (I don't really know the costs here, so I cant give a figure.), isn't pressure?

There are PLENTY of games that go through minor patches to suit different country's own legal conditions. GTA IV was modified slightly in Australia and that modified version was sold here. In Germany, games cannot have representations of Swastikas ... how do you thing that affects all the WWII games sold ever there. If Bethesda followed the lead of other game companies, they would not need to "censor" the "rest of the world".

As it happens, all that is happening is changing Morphine to a fake drugs name. Why is that so much of an issue?

that make the US Govt look like a gang of hookers and porn stars

I thought they were.

As I stated before, the thing that's holding up an R18+ rating is one man. Once we get that rating, everything will be all hunky-dory.

The difference is that unlike the US, Australian retailers will still sell a game if we do get a rating of R18+. In the US if a game is rated AO, all hell breaks loose and NOBODY sells it. Explain that one to me? If you want to talk about prudes, you need to closely look at the CEO's of major retail chains in the US.